The Alien Nine months

 Friday word: Alien

The Alien Nine Months 

The earthen pot hit the hard rock and struggled to gulp some water. After some ropy manoeuvres, it did get a mouthful. Slowly it rose in pride, happy about its accomplishment. Jharnaben tucked the pot on her sides and started a strenuous walk back home. As she entered the community of mud huts, pooping eyes from behind the wooden doors envied her potful trophy. Ignoring them all, Jharnaben made her way to a handful of chores that awaited her that morning. Pots and pans, children and the entire clan needed the H2O even if it meant a sip. With a growing pot belly, she could only manage to get one pot at a time. Placing one pot down( of course the other inbuild would have to wait for another 2months), she heaved a sigh of relief. 

 

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     The white sands of Rann though of superior colour brought stark darkness and dryness in the eyes of the beholders. Deserted lives in the arid deserts! Mother earth didn't bear a raw sapling and water was available only on miles of walking. Whatever little money the villagers made was by promoting their artefacts and embroidery.

Jharnaben and Ashokbhai were such a couple who earned their bread minus the butter by weaving reshim peacocks on ghagaras and cholis. Maybe someday the Ganga would love to visit the Gulf of Kutch,  Jharnaben's parents had named her in anticipation. The couple very frequently laughed at this irony of her life where a Jharna had to walk to the well in quest of quenching its thirst. Very little yet sufficient, the couple ate their bajra roti and jaggery with great satisfaction. Ashokbhai was proud of fathering four puddles, rippling and turbulent in their own ways. The youngest oasis, Prakash was indeed the light of their life. In barely four months, he would be rocked in has made of old sarees and new enthusiasm. His little hungry cries brought bigger smiles on the tanned faces of his parents. 

But now the cries would not stop on a full stomach too. It brought wearisome faces probing him for crying endeavours. 

"What makes you cry, my son?" Jharnaben rocked the jhula incessantly. The jhula moved as Jharnaben sat by its side unmoved for hours together. The local doctors gave syrups but nothing worked. Finally, the couple approached the government hospital at Mandvi. Series of tests and cascades of questions exposed an ugly tumour in the bowel of the newborn. 

"Around a lakh, Ashokbhai. Treatment among che." The surgeon proclaimed. 

"Sahib, where will I get those rupees from? I have three other pits to fill." Cried Ashokbhai helplessly as Jharnaben watched stoically. 

"I have a means of income for you if you are willing." The doctor offered his best deal. 

"Sahib, I will plough the barren lands if you say but just save my sapling." Begged Ashokbhai. He suddenly noticed the doctor eyeing his cold wife. 

"Not you, she can help." Without hesitating a second, the medico spoke. 

Ashokbhai grabbed the doctor by his collar, "Hamari izzat hamari zindagi hai. Dare you look at my wife," he growled like an angry wolf. 

"Na, na Mota bhai, don't get me wrong. Come back in the evening, I will show the rising sun." Thus, the baffled doctor rose and left the heated room. 

All this while the sun had come crushing on Jharnaben. What to say? How to say? Her tongue felt numb as if sucked a piece of dry ice. 

The couple once again entered the now dimly lit doctor's cabin in search of hope. But this time there were a couple more making the room look crowded. They conversed with the doctor in an alien language. They seemed alien to this land as well. On seeing the two silent shadows, the three talking toms stopped. 

"Aao Ashokbhai, meet Mr and Mrs Goodfellow. They have come here in search of some hope." The doctor's introduction made no sense to Ashokbhai. 

Yet the medico continued, "Mrs Goodfellow even after trying for years is not able to sustain a pregnancy. They are ready to pay 2lakhs to the woman who begets them their own biological child."

"SAHIB!" once again the volcano erupted, "We may be poor and in crisis but my wife will not sleep with another man!" Ashokbhai fumed curling his fist. 

"Take a cool sip, Ashokbhai. Your wife will have to only rent her womb. With a small surgery, we will implant the seed of this couple in her womb. She has to grow it like her own and at the end of nine months hand it over to them. Simple, isn't it?"

The doctor had a way with his commercial words. There was an eerie silence and the womb deal added to the horror. The Goodfellows looked at the distraught couple as if they were God's fellows. 

"Yes, I will." Came a reply from under the ghoonghat. 

Mrs. Goodfellow hugged Jharnaben without an inhibitions. 

The deal was signed and first cheque of 50,000 was handed to Ashokbhai. First time they had seen the value of four zeros together. 

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Carrying an alien body inside her felt nauseous yet when saw her own blood and flesh recovering with the money bagged, she never puked. Religiously, she carried the Goodfellow's future in her womb. At times, Jharnaben found this renting business very lucrative. Give a baby, get lakhs in return. After all it wasn't her own so who cares what happened later. 

Gradually, the delivery date neared. The manufactured product had to brought out of the box and delivered naked. Any defect would cost them a loss of remaining few thousands. The mechanical roaring of the machine began. It was about to pop out its worthy possession. Why was it contracting so hard? But it was worth it, thought Jharnaben for now all the hardships were going to end. Finally, a melodious cry echoed in the delivery room. Jharnaben closed her eyes in relief. In a second she opened them to look for the bundle of joy. But it was all gone to its real beholder. She begged the doctor to show her the face at least once. But she was thrown  aside like a piece of paper that wraps a dabeli only to be discarded after its purpose is served. 

"I'm also the mother." She wailed. "Without me, this joy would not have seen the day." She fought with an empty room. 

"This is your real joy." Ashokbhai entered with a year-old Prakash in his arms. 

Indeed, Prakash was her real progeny for whom she had lived these alien nine months. This time the pot had luckily not struck a hard rock. It had waters of happiness for both couples. 

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